Question

Again, I need someone’s help. I am following the below tutorial for SQLite connection with FMDB wrapper:

http://www.icodeblog.com/2011/11/04/simple-sqlite-database-interaction-using-fmdb/

In the above tutorial, everything (creating a database and table, inserting, deleting) is done programmatically but everything works fine in simulator but when I use SQLite Manager add-on to make any insertion on the database (that was programmatically created in iOS), it doesn’t show up in my testing device. Is there something that I am missing (like copying the file to my bundle) on my side? This is really driving me crazy. I am completely new to these.. Can anyone help me with this?

PS: I know I can use Core Data but for certain reasons I have to live with SQLite for this app. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Make sure to (a) include the db in the bundle (see here for screen snapshot of where the “copy bundle resources” can be found); and (b) programmatically copy db from bundle to documents. You can then open it from there.

Why it works on your simulator and not the device is a little curious. I can only imagine that you’re reading from some fixed path, rather than programmatically retrieving the app’s Documents folder?

Update:

I’d suggest checking your various return codes and make sure everything is ok.

I’ve taken your code sample and have (a) checked result of creation of FMDatabase; (b) checked result of open; (c) checked the result of FMResultSet, including the display of the sqlite error message; and (d) closed the result set:

NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *docsPath = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *path = [docsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"DADatabase.sqlite"];

FMDatabase *database = [FMDatabase databaseWithPath:path];
NSAssert(database, @"Unable to create FMDatabase object");

NSLog(@"%@", database);

BOOL success = [database open];
NSAssert(success, @"Unable to open database");

FMResultSet *results = [database executeQuery:@"SELECT * FROM DrugList"];
NSAssert(results, @"Unable to create result set: %@", [database lastErrorMessage]);

while([results next]) {
    NSString *name = [results stringForColumn:@"Drugname"];
    [arrayToLoadDiseases addObject:name];
}

[results close]; 

[database close];

If you’re running this in your simulator, you can go ahead and inspect the simulator’s bundle and Documents folders if things don’t go right, just to make sure everything is where it should be. You simulator’s folder is something like “~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/” (replace the 5.1 with whatever version of your simulator you are using). You might have to unhide your Library folder, if you haven’t already, by running the chflags nohidden ~/Library in a Terminal command-line window. Anyway, you can open up the simulator’s database using Mac OS X’s sqlite3 command and make sure your table is ok.

A common mistake is to fail to programmatically copy the database properly, thus the open method will create a blank database, and executeQuery will fail saying that the table was not found.

Let me know what you find.